LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Planning Commission on Wednesday night voted to deny an application for a Dollar General store, with commissioners split over concerns about getting more information about the project and an environmental rules exemption proposed by planning staff.
Texas-based Cross Development applied for the architectural and design review for the store, to be located at 1405 S. Main St.
After nearly two hours of discussion, the commission voted 2-3 in favor of the application. Michael Green and Suzanne Russell voted to support it moving forward, with Chair Harold Taylor and members Ken Wicks Jr. and Michael Froio casting no votes.
Lakeport Associate Planner Dan Chance, in his report to the commission, said the plan calls for building the store at the corner of Kimberly Lane and S. Main Street on a vacant 1.88-acre lot near the Shoreline Shopping Center.
It would follow the typical Dollar General formula that includes a single-story, 9,100-square-foot prefabricated steel building that will take up just under half of the lot size, Chance said.
Cross Development representative Joe Dell said the company – which has worked on the proposal for a year – planned to keep the portion of the lot behind the store undeveloped.
Chance said the project plan calls for 36 parking spaces and landscaping including numerous trees, with the store to be accessed from driveways entering the property from both Kimberly Lane and S. Main Street. There also would be three signs, one 100-square-foot sign on pylons facing S. Main Street and two mounted on the building’s east and north sides.
Originally, the building had been proposed to be set back off the street, with parking in front of it. With the general plan suggesting nodal development – which calls for compact, mixed use communities – staff went back to Cross Development and asked for modifications, which resulted in the store being reoriented to sit at the front of the property, Chance said.
As one of the many conditions of development, Cross Development would be required to make curb, gutter, sidewalk and street improvements on Kimberly Lane, install bike racks and add a sidewalk that can access the front of the building.
Chance said a traffic study was completed that showed only a 1-percent increase in vehicle traffic. An archaeological study was completed and identified no cultural resources.
He said the project fit the requirements of the architectural design review, and staff suggested it be approved with the proposed condition.
Chance added that staff had determined that the store project was categorically exempt from the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, according to Section 15332 of the 2016 CEQA guidelines.
He said those guidelines allow development on parcels less than five acres substantially surrounded by urban uses; consistent with the general plan and zoning; determined to have no impacts on rare, threatened and endangered species; and no traffic, noise, air quality or water quality impacts.
That CEQA exemption would turn out to be a key issue in the commission’s Wednesday vote.
Commissioners, public express concerns
Cross Development has developed Dollar General stores in Clearlake Oaks and Nice, is looking for a site in Lucerne and has been denied for store projects in Middletown, in Kelseyville across from the high school and the Clear lake Riviera.
In order to explain the differences between planning processes in the county of Lake and the city with regard to Cross Development’s Dollar General plans, Lakeport Community Development Director Kevin Ingram explained that the county has thresholds for higher levels of review triggered by square footage.
He said the Lakeport Zoning Ordinance didn’t establish building threshold sizes, and so Cross Development’s plans on the commercially zoned property on S. Main Street is a use by right.
The city can use the CEQA exemption to support infill development, which is why no initial studies were required, Ingram said.
Dell spoke to the commission to ask for clarifications on some of the conditions, and agreed at the request of Commissioner Suzanne Russell to add several more trees – not sycamores, at staff’s suggestion – to the landscape plan as part of softening the building’s look.
During public comment, Lakeport resident and business owner Nancy Ruzicka said she opposed approving the application.
“I don't know what we're doing approving a Dollar General,” she said, adding that Dollar General started out in the country, “and I think that's where tin sheds belong, next to the John Deere dealer.”
She objected to the steel structure and how it would be situated on S. Main Street, suggesting it would become an eyesore.
Lower Lake resident Ed Robey, a former county planning commissioner and retired District 1 county supervisor, also spoke against a Dollar General in Lakeport, as he has done with regard to store projects in the county’s jurisdiction.
Robey said local planning rules aren’t designed to handle things like Dollar General, which is trying to put stores in every little town they can. He suggested the city might end up with two of the stores.
“It really does have an impact on the local businesses that are the foundation of your local economy,” he said.
Lakeport resident Christine Hutt said she was concerned about traffic on that corridor of S. Main Street, which she said has traffic and turning issues.
During commission deliberation, Froio said he was generally against the project for a number of reasons – traffic, impacts on other businesses and location, among others.
While Green pointed out that there is a “full on press into Lake County” by Dollar General, overall he said he wasn’t against the project as it met city requirements.
Wicks said he disagreed with staff that about the CEQA exemption and their assertion that the project proposal didn’t require an initial study. He was concerned that there wasn’t a full site plan and believed that, based on his interpretation, the project wasn’t exempt from CEQA.
“This town desperately needs to growth,” he said, but he questioned the protocol being used to support moving the store proposal forward.
Taylor said he wanted to hold the matter over so the commission could get more information, in addition to the already voluminous report it had received on the item. Green said he didn’t believe anything would change with more time.
In response to Wicks, Dell said his company wasn’t required to provide a full set of project plans in order to meet the architectural and design review requirements, explaining that those plans would be submitted as part of the building permit process.
Dell added that while Wicks may not think it’s a CEQA-exempt project, the city’s own ordinances say it is, and Dell maintained he was following the letter of the law.
Wicks said it was his job to question whether it met the criteria for an exemption, and that was what he was doing. He said he didn’t have a problem with the project or the aesthetics, that it was simply a matter of disagreeing with the CEQA exemption.
Dell said if the commission didn’t approve the exemption, he would appeal it to the city council. Wicks said that, in that case, the city council would have the information and understand the commission’s thought process on the matter.
Dell said a denial related to CEQA needed to be specific, and he said he was open to a continuance if they needed more information. He added that his company had completed the studies the city had asked it to do.
Ingram said planning staff didn’t feel the project required an initial study and so suggested the categorical CEQA exemption for infill development. He said requiring an initial study could add another three months onto the project’s timeline.
“There's a precedent there that you're setting for future development projects as well,” said Ingram, explaining that the commission was potentially taking away the ability to use that categorical CEQA exemption in the future.
Dell offered to bring his CEQA attorney back to speak to the commission. “I think it's a stretch to say an initial study would be required here.”
He said he was not in a position to do an initial study now, and after having worked on the plans for a year such a request was a shock. “I’m not trying to push it either way, but a lot of time, a lot of money has been spent.”
Rather than delay, Green suggested having a vote to give Cross Development a decision, and moved to approve it with the categorical exemption, leading to the split 2-3 vote.
After the vote, Dell asked if the matter could be appealed to the Lakeport City Council. Ingram said yes, that the deadline for filing the appeal was five days after the commission decision.
Dell asked Ingram to state what precisely had happened with the commission vote so he can meet with attorneys and planning staff. Ingram boiled it down to the commission not feeling that CEQA was satisfied.
“And so we're done, I guess,” said Dell, who on the way out of the meeting told Ingram he needed the appeal form and the findings of fact.
Also on Wednesday, the commission approved an architectural and design review application from Lake Parts/Napa Auto Parts at 1015 S. Main St. for the construction of an 8-foot solid fence in front of an existing cargo container.
The commission also gave the OK to an application from Stonefire Pizza Co./NorCal Dining Group for architectural and design review to allow a 647-square-foot wood trellis over an outdoor dining area and a zoning permit to allow outdoor food service within the Bruno’s Shopping Center at 383 Lakeport Blvd.
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Lakeport Planning Commission votes down Dollar General project
- Elizabeth Larson
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